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| All Doctrine True Which Comes Through the Church from the Apostles, Who Were Taught by God Through Christ. All Opinion Which Has No Such Divine Origin and Apostolic Tradition to Show, is Ipso Facto False. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter XXI.—All
Doctrine True Which Comes Through the Church from the Apostles, Who
Were Taught by God Through Christ. All Opinion Which Has No Such Divine
Origin and Apostolic Tradition to Show, is Ipso
Facto False.
From this, therefore, do we draw up our rule.
Since the Lord Jesus Christ sent the apostles to preach, (our rule is)
that no others ought to be received as preachers than those whom Christ
appointed; for “no man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to
whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.”2062
Nor does the Son seem to have revealed Him to any other than the
apostles, whom He sent forth to preach—that, of course, which He
revealed to them. Now, what that was which they preached—in other
words, what it was which Christ revealed to them—can, as I must
here likewise prescribe, properly be proved in no other way than by
those very churches which the apostles founded in person, by declaring
the gospel to them directly themselves, both vivâ
voce, as the phrase is, and subsequently by their epistles.
If, then, these things are so, it is in the same degree2063 manifest that all doctrine which agrees with
the apostolic churches—those moulds2064
and original sources of the faith must be reckoned for truth, as
undoubtedly containing that which the (said) churches received from the
apostles, the apostles from Christ, Christ from God. Whereas all
doctrine must be prejudged2065
2065
Præjudicandam. [This then is
Præscription.] | as false2066 which savours of contrariety to the truth of
the churches and apostles of Christ and God. It remains, then, that we
demonstrate whether this doctrine of ours, of which we have now given
the rule, has its origin2067 in the tradition of
the apostles, and whether all other doctrines do not
ipso facto2068
2068 Ex hoc ipso,
“from this very circumstance.” | proceed from
falsehood. We hold communion with the apostolic churches because our
doctrine is in no respect different from theirs. This is
our witness of truth.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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